Virtue of Vice, Vice of Virtue
by Aergonaut
Summary: What is virtue? Vice? Where does the one begin and the other end? What turns calm into chaos, confidence into desperation? What turns Peace into Battle?
1. Prelude

**Author's Note:** The few Barron Battle fics I've seen paint him as either purely evil or as a sort of turn-coat who was good but then became evil. I always saw him slightly differently. This is my attempt to put that into words. Or something like that.

**Disclaimer:** Disney owns the characters. I own the story.

**Synopsis:** What is virtue? What is vice? Where does the one begin and the other end? What turns calm into chaos, confidence into desperation? What turns peace into battle?

"Prelude"

I used to have a name, back in the old days when I was still in school. Everyone's forgotten it now, though. Even I've forgotten it. Nowadays, everyone calls me something else.

"Battle!" a voice bellowed into my ears, somehow reaching above the roar of the flames swirling around me. "Battle! What are you doing?"

Battle. Barron Battle, that is. That was the name they gave me at graduation.

"Battle, you've got to stop this!" the voice continued, insistent over the roar of the flames. "You've got to stop this now!"

_Stop? No. No, this needs to be done_, I thought. I took a step forward, deeper into the inferno that raged before me. _This is what I've got to do._

"John!" the voice said finally.

John? Was that it? Yeah. John Peace. That was my name.

I turned away from the crimson flames to look behind me. Someone was standing there, in the excruciating heat that I thought only I could stand. The figure was wearing a newly tailored supersuit, its three-tone color scheme washed over in red by the fire. Of course. If there was anyone who could have a chance in here, it was _him._

"Steve, I told you not to follow me," I said flatly over my back. "This isn't your concern."

"John, this was my concern from the beginning. This city is my assignment. You made it my concern the moment you attacked Maxville, John."

Steven Stronghold, or the Commander as he was now known, had been my best friend all through our four years at Sky High together. Even so, I'd always played second fiddle to him. I was strong, he was stronger; I was brilliant, he was a genius; I was suave, he was so cool he could freeze the sun if he got close enough. And when graduation came, and we were all given our security levels, I was Unyielding and gained clearance for top-secret, high-risk jobs, but he was Invincible and got a whole city as his assignment to boot. So now, of course, he thinks he can talk me down, make me stop.

I turned all the way around to look my friend in the face. Sweat streamed down his cheeks from his forehead, his smartly coiffed hair losing its sheen and falling flatly against his scalp as the raging heat melted his fancy styling wax. I extinguished the flames licking around my wrists and cracked my leather-clad knuckles. "We're supposed to keep people safe," I said. "As far as I can remember, Steve, that's been my assignment. Isn't that what yours is, what everyone's is?"

"John, who is this helping?" Steve said pleadingly. "Who is all this keeping safe?" He gestured desperately at the scene that surrounded us. And for the first time, I saw it.

We were downtown. But you couldn't tell that from the surroundings. This looked more like a war zone, like London after a air raid. Fire leapt around and danced across the street, devouring and consuming buildings, light posts, cars, trees, and anything else in its path. Bonfires as much as a storey tall raged across the sidewalks and in the street, while other blazes flew up into the night air from the rooftops, staining the velvet sky a brilliant crimson. The sounds of falling beams, shattering windows, and the occasional exploding engine filled the night.

"Who is this _possibly_ helping?"

He must've thought that would bring me around, that I'd see his point and that I'd "calm down and think rationally." But I couldn't "calm down," couldn't "think rationally." Not if I wanted to keep her safe. Not if I wanted to keep both of them safe. This had to be done. And I wouldn't let anyone stop me.

"John, please stop this," Steve said, his voice barely reaching above the roar of the flames and chaos surrounding us.

"I can't, Steve," I said. "This must be done."

"Don't make me, John. Please, don't make me stop you."

"I'm sorry, old friend," I said. I summoned the fire to me and felt the raging heat of the inferno swirl around my body, letting it engulf first my hands, then my wrists, then my arms entirely.

Steve's head hung to his chest. He raised it slowly, locking his eyes, which I now saw filled with hardened determination, with mine. "I'm coming," he said, surging forward, his left shoulder forward and his right hand, now balled into a fist, pulled back, ready to strike.

I raised my now blazing arms above my head and willed the fire together into an concentrated fireball. I thrust my arms forward, sending the fireball hurtling towards him, on a collision course with his now completely decoiffed head.

"I can't let you stop me."


	2. Beginnings

**Author's Note:** Here's the second part. Please R&R. I love comments. I'm sorry if it seems a little rushed at the end here, but I didn't think what I was rushing through all that important. Please tell me what you think.

**Disclaimer: **Still don't own 'em.

"Beginnings"

"Paula!" I called, running down the hallway, throwing my bag over my left shoulder and pulling my leather jacket over my right. The bell had just rung so the hall was filled with a stampede of teenagers. I dodged through the crowd towards the front doors just as my target placed her hand on the handle and began to push them open. "Paula, wait up!"

I reached the door just as she was stepping out, putting my hand out over her shoulder to hold the door open for her. I leaned heavily against it, panting slightly to catch my breath. "At least... let me carry... your books..." I said between gasps.

She didn't even acknowledge me, but simply walked through the door I held open and down the steps, the edges of her burgundy dress swishing slightly as she walked down the steps. I sighed and bounded after her, letting the door close on the noses of several freshmen.

"Paula, c'mon, just talk to me?" I said pleadingly as I slowed to a walk beside her, leaning forward slightly to look her in the face. She gave me an indignant squeak, "hmpf!" and looked the other way. _I really screwed up this one_, I thought.

"Paula, what do you want? You want me to say 'I'm sorry'? OK, OK, I'm sorry. I'm really, truly sorry, alright? Denise said she needed some help with her mad science project so I offered to help her out a bit," I said. She took a step forward and stopped suddenly in front of me, so suddenly that I almost fell over her.

"And I suppose the carrying her books and letting her lean on your shoulder were just part of that too?" she said accusingly.

"What? No! No, no, she sprained her ankle the other day in Save the Citizen so I offered to carry her books," I stammered, scratching the back of my head with one of my hands. Paula looked at me, her dark eyes incredulous. "The shoulder... well, she just did that by herself."

She looked me over with her dark eyes, scrutinizing every aspect of my body, looking for any clue in the way I stood, the way my face was arranged, or anything that would tell her what to believe. After a long silence, she finally spoke. "Truth?"

"Truth, Paula," I said.

"John Peace, you are... You are..." she screwed up her face in exasperation, but decided to simply shake her head and sigh heavily. "Unbelievable, that's what you are," she said, thrusting her books forward into my chest, almost knocking the wind out of my lungs.

The first time I saw Paula Gold was the first day of our freshman year at Sky High, during Power Placement. She was an illusionist and I remember watching, completely amazed, as she spun a breathtaking scene of a country meadow in summer, the grass green, the sky blue, and the sun bright and warm, around the gym, and how she blushed ever so slightly as the entire class, and Coach Boomer, drew a collective gasp at the beauty she'd created.

Steve had seen me looking at her, slack-jawed and a blank stare on my face. "You should ask her out," he told me, later that day over lunch.

"Are you kidding?" I said. "We're total opposites! She'd never go for it."

"Y'know what my dad always says to me when I tell him something like that, John?" Steve replied, settling into inspirational-speech-mode as he bit into a cookie. "He says, 'You'll never get anywhere if you don't try.'"

"But what if she says no?"

"Well," he said, munching contentedly, "what if she says yes?" I looked at him incredulously. "Think of it this way: If you do ask her, you've got about a 50 chance that she'll say yes. But if you don't ask her, then you're chance that she'll say yes approaches absolute zero." He swallowed hard and downed his half-pint of milk. "Y'know?"

I chuckled and smiled, shaking my head. Steve was inspirational like that, he had it in his genes. He just didn't have the gene that made you take him seriously. "That would've been a whole lot more inspirational without the cookie and the milk."

I glanced around the lunch room as I bit into my sandwich. As my eyes traveled the tables, I saw her, Paula Gold, sitting off by a window with a few of her friends, talking and laughing and having a generally good time. The way the sun played across her cheeks and made her dark eyes sparkle brilliantly, the way her long, dark hair fell gracefully around her shoulders and danced as she moved, the way her voice rolled off her tongue like liquid silk and her laugh chimed like the harmony of a thousand silver bells – I was captivated.

Steve snapped me out of my trance, waving his hand in front of my face. "You really are hopeless, John," he said, laughing.

When I finally worked up the nerve to ask her to our junior prom, I'd been a nervous wreck. People tell me I'm a pretty confident guy, normally, and I believe them; but that day, I was scared to death of what she'd say. I wasn't the right kind of guy for her. I was too brutal, too shallow, too completely different from her that she'd never see anything likable, let alone lovable, in me. But when I finally stopped her on the steps to the school and asked her, she'd shattered every one of my concerns.

She couldn't get her mind off me, she'd told me. Every night, all she thought about was me and she couldn't get her mind to concentrate on anything else. I was so completely different from her, she'd said, that she couldn't believe how attracted to me she was. She couldn't wait to let me take her to prom. And, she couldn't believe I hadn't made a move sooner.

Now, almost a year later, I was feeling just as nervous and run down as I had that day. I couldn't bear to lose Paula so soon. I couldn't imagine how anything could ever go on if she were to leave me. I loved her too damn much. I hurried after her to the edge of the school, shuffling her books around in my arms, and followed her up into the bus. Maybe she didn't know just how dedicated to her I was. I promised myself right then and there that, after graduation, I'd find a way to show her.

---

Senior came and went, and we were at graduation in what seemed like a blink of the eye. Paula had forgiven me for the incident with Denise, forgiven me entirely. At graduation, I was titled "Barron Battle." My color scheme was declared to be black and red. That was a relief for me, as pretty much everything I already owned was either black, white, or red. Paula was named Duplicita, her colors a sky blue and white. After the last of the heroes received their names and colors, and the last of the sidekicks had been paired off, Principal Powers gave us a speech, marking that day as a most momentous occasion, the day when we'd all go on to begin our careers as the new protectors of the planet. I'm sure the day was momentous for the whole class, but it was even more so for me.

After the cheers had died down and the rain of caps subsided, I looked around the field for Paula. I spotted her leaning against a tree off to the side of the field. As I got closer, I saw the she was looking up into the branches at something, apparently quite amusing as she was laughing.

"Hey, Paula," I greeted, waving to her as I approached. "What're you doing?"

"Oh, hi John," she said. She pointed up to a branch where I saw a bluebird chirping. "Watch this," she said, raising her hand and swirling her fingers, creating in a small flash of light a perfect replica of the bluebird that fluttered down onto the branch and began singing harmony with the other. She laughed her musical laugh again, and I smiled.

"So, Paula," I said as lightly as I could, leaning back against the tree next to her, "you and me, we've been going out for what is it now? A year? A year and a half?"

"A year and a half about, I'd say," she said, a little distractedly. "Why do you ask?"

"Well, I was just thinking that, well, a year and a half's a long time, y'know? Long enough for you to see how you really feel about someone."

"Hmm," she said.

"Long enough to know if you really love someone," I said, almost forcing the words from my quaking mouth.

"I do love you, John," she said, turning her head slightly now to look at me from the side of eye. "You know that."

"I do," I said. "And I love you too, very much, Paula. You know that, don't you?"

"Of course I do, John."

"So, I figured that it's like Principal Powers said. Today's the day our lives really begin, today's the day we all make our new starts." I turned my head to look at her and saw that she'd done the same, her dark eyes studying me intently. "So, I figured, if I'm going to be making a new start, I want to make it really special."

"Hmm," Paula said, turning her body a bit more so she was leaning on her side rather than on her back.

"And, so, I couldn't think of anything more special than starting out with someone I love," I said, my voice shaking like a leaf in a gale and my heart beating in my ears, and only vaguely aware that Paula had shifted over a few inches closer to me on the tree.

"So, I guess what I'm trying to say is," I continued, "I want to m—"

But I didn't get to finish. Paula wrapped her hand around the back of my neck and pulled me into her, pressing her lips softly against mine. Saying that I was anything but completely and utterly astonished would be a complete and utter lie. We pulled apart, I entirely out of breath from the shock, and she simply smiling lightly.

"Of course I'll marry you, John Peace," she said, laughing. I laughed lightly. _This wasn't any laughing matter, _I thought to myself. "How long have you been building up to this."

"Since that day I told you about what happened with Denise," I said, cringing at the mention of that girl's name. "I wanted to find a way to show you that I really love you." I reached into my pocket and pulled out a little velvet lined box. "This was the best thing I could think of."

She took the box in her hands and opened it slowly. Her eyes sparkled when she saw the thin band of gold, set with three rubies inside. "John, this is beautiful," she gasped.

"I'll buy you a proper one later," I said hastily. "With diamonds and all. But I knew you liked rubies, so I was hoping this would be fine until then?"

She smiled and shook her head lightly, clicking her tongue "ts, ts, ts." She fitted the ring onto her finger. "John Peace, you are unbelievable."

---

There's not much else I could say about that. Paula and I talked it over with our parents and they were all thrilled to hear that we'd be getting together. We chose a date in August and chose an open spot out in the country. Paula didn't want a big wedding, and I was just as happy to keep it small. Her parents helped us find an apartment and agreed to help us pay the rent for as long as we needed to get settled. I found a part-time job working as a clerk for a sales firm to get us some income while we both looked around for something more sustainable for the future.

A year or so passed and our lives stabilized. Paula and I both wanted to build a family; but we agreed, to the relief of our parents, that we weren't nearly stable enough, financially or otherwise, to take a shot at raising children. So, we decided to wait a few years and let things settle down. I went back to school to get a degree in architecture and Paula began studying interior design, both jobs that we knew would give us enough leeway to take off if ever we needed too.

Back in those days, the hero front was pretty slow. I don't know if it was because we were new recruits or if crime and villainy just wasn't a big thing yet, but, compared to today, we rarely had any action at all. One of us would get an assignment every now and again, but for the most part we were living out normal lives. Even so, out of the two of us, I was always the busiest. I had an assignment at least once or twice a month while Paula only very rarely got assignments of her own. As time went on and our careers picked up, I only got busier, with assignments being called in all the time. Looking back, I think it must have been all that activity I had that led me to where I am now.


	3. Confrontation

**Author's Note:** Wow, long hiatus! Deepest apologies about that. School's started and all, so I don't have as much time to write as I'd like. Thanks to those who did review. I really appreciate it. Again, I apologize if this seems rushed. I'm trying to keep myself as close to five chapters as possible with this story as an exercise in cutting out unnecessary stuff.

**Disclaimer:** Yup. You guessed it. I don't own any of these characters.

"Confrontation"

"Syllabus 3-5-9," the garbled computerized voice on the other end of the line said.

_Syllabus?_ I thought, a little surprised. I got up quickly and grabbed the manila folder sitting in the drawer beneath the phone. I leafed through the colored pages of code prompts and their proper responses until I got to the section marked "Syllabus." I looked down the list until I found the prompt "Syllabus 3-5-9," and glanced over to the response column before speaking.

"Avalon 7-2-6," I replied, enunciating my words. I heard a click and several short dial-tones as my line was transferred. _Never had to use the Avalon pass codes before_, I thought to myself.

I prayed silently in my mind that whatever mission I was about to be assigned would be quick and simple. It was a nice, sunny, summer Saturday afternoon and I would have much rather been spending it outside and with Paula than on a mission. But because the day was as nice and serene as it was, this mission had to be something big. The news had made no mentions of any giant robots or mutant slug armies, so there was no hope of getting some simple job like that.

On the other end of the line, I heard a few more clicks and then, finally, a voice. "Is this Barron Battle?" it asked.

"Yes," I replied.

"I've heard many good things about you, Barron," the voice said. "My sources say that you're very good."

I chuckled lightly. "Thank you," I said, "but not to be rude, I'd like to have my assignment so I can get to work."

A crisp laugh came over the line. "Of course, of course," the voice said, "down to business." There was a rustling of papers. "Please take some notes, a briefing will not be sent to you. This subject is too sensitive."

I fumbled around in the drawer beneath the phone for a pad of paper and a pen. "Go ahead."

The voice cleared itself before beginning. "I've gotten wind of a new smuggling ring that has been gaining force in the past weeks. They call themselves the Family."

"The Family," I repeated, thoughtfully. "Sounds Italian."

"We don't know where they originated from, but we do know that they have been regularly smuggling goods into the country at least since the beginning of this month. Perhaps even earlier."

"Smuggling?" I said. "Of what?"

"That's just the thing," the voice continued. "We have no idea what the Family is smuggling. However, we do know that, whatever it is, it is extremely important and very sensitive. I have sent several other heroes on investigations already, and all have reported back to me that they ran into powered resistance." The voice placed special emphasis on "powered."

"And you want me to...?"

"Investigate the situation. The Family have been feeling a little too secure lately and have become more bold and less cautious with their movements. A big shipment of goods is supposed to land tonight at Pier 42."

I noted the location. "Gotcha."

"The Family is treacherous, Barron," the voice said as I was putting down the receiver. "Be on your guard."

I hung the phone back on the hook and started upstairs. A simple investigation needn't deprive me of my entire day. I'd get going just after dark so I could have some cover and spend the rest of the afternoon with Paula.

---

"Be careful, John," Paula said to me as I walked towards the hall closet. I retrieved the last piece of my supersuit, a black leather jacket that I'd had for at least five years, and pulled it over my shoulders and my maroon shirt. I knelt down and tied the laces on my black boots and pulled my pair of fingerless, black leather gloves over my hands. I had many things to be thankful for, but there were two things that I was especially thankful for: I was married to my high-school sweetheart and was living a perfectly happy and content life; and I hadn't got saddled with one of those skin-tight costumes done up in flashy primary colors.

"Don't worry, honey," I said, grabbing the keys to my car and starting towards the door. "I'll be back late, so don't stay up for me." I kissed her softly. "And don't worry, it'll just be a quick in-and-out."

I turned the knob on the front door and pushed it open. The night air as cool and crisp and felt refreshing after the warm day. I stepped out onto the porch and looked up at the sky, blanketed in thousands of winking points of light.

"I love you, John," Paula said affectionately as I stepped off the porch and started walking towards my car.

"Love you too," I said back, waving a kiss to her. She closed the door quietly and I climbed into my, also black, sports car. I turned the ignition and, after a moment spent finding a good radio station, drove off towards the Maxville Pier.

I switched off the headlights as I pulled up to Pier 41. The Piers were one of the oldest parts of the city; and Pier 41 really showed it. The sheet-metal walls of the warehouses surrounding the dock were rusted, some with holes in them and others entirely missing. The loading crane looked horribly in disrepair and hardly able to lift anything anymore No one ever used this pier, or even any of the piers past Pier 20, anymore. _Perfect place for a secret smuggling ring_, I thought.

And sure enough, as I stalked around the stacks and piles of rusted barrels and broken crates, I saw movement. Lots of movement, in fact. A ship was docked at the pier and there was a steady line of trucks driving back and forth between the ship and some other location behind a warehouse.

_Let's see_, I thought to myself, _if I were the operator of a super-secret smuggling ring, where would I hang out?_ I eyed a door on the back side of the warehouse where all the crates were being unloaded to, deciding that that looked like as good a place as any to start.

We'd all learned stealth and finesse at Sky High. I'd never been very good at it. Nevertheless, I put what meager stealth skills I had to use as I crept around the crates and barrels and parked forklifts. I pressed my body close against the wall of the warehouse and shimmied up to the door. I glanced quickly around to make sure no one was watching before cracking the door open and slipping inside.

Like I said, I was never too good at stealth. A big part of stealth is anticipating traps. That part I'd been the worst at. When I slipped into the warehouse through the door, I was met not by the pitch darkness or sparse moonlight that I had expected, but instead by a blinding flash of white and the feeling of a pair of enormous hands wrapping around my shoulders and covering my eyes, pulling me into the room and shoving me down into a chair. _Oh great_, I thought.

When I felt the pressure of the hands release and opened my eyes, I found that I was sitting at a table across from a rather old looking man, shallow wrinkles showing around his eyes and mouth and his graying hair beginning to thin. He fingered the gold buttons on the sleeve of his white jacket absentmindedly while he thumbed through a manila folder with his other hand. He seemed to sense that I had opened my eyes and looked up.

"Mr. Peace," the old man said, an elitist drawl in his voice, "I am quite disappointed. Your file here says you are much too good a strategist to be caught by something as simple as this." He gestured around at the large room, bathed completely in brilliant white light, save for the windows which remained entirely dark as the night outside. He swished his finger. "John, I am quite disappointed."

"How do you know that name?" I growled, trying my best to stem the rage rising within me and keep the flames extinguished.

"Oh, that's right," the man said, chuckling. "You go by a different name when 'doing business,' don't you?" He rifled through the folder and retrieved a typed sheet with my picture on it. He squinted at one of the top lines and read, " 'Barron Battle,' is that it?"

I tried to hide my disbelief. How could anyone know about who I was? I was careful to keep my identities separate and never told anyone that John Peace knew about the Barron whom the Barron didn't already know. So how had this old man, the leader of a smuggling ring that just popped into existence, and whom I'd never heard of before in my life, know about my two identities? But even though his face was entirely new to me, I couldn't help but feel that there was something familiar about him. But before I could place it, he chuckled again.

"You're wondering how I know so much, aren't you?" he said, leaning forward, lacing his fingers and placing his chin atop them. "I've been watching you for a long time, Barron. I'm on quite familiar terms with you, in fact. Oh? You don't remember? Well, maybe if I talk," he cleared his throat, "like this," he said, the drawl suddenly gone from his voice.

And then it clicked. That's what was familiar about him. His was the same voice that had been giving me my last few missions. His was the same voice that had given me _this_ mission! I tried to hide the frantic anxiety threatening to sweep across my face. If this guy had been giving me missions, then that means he'd have had to have infiltrated AMSA (the Association for the Management of Superpowered Affairs). And that was supposed to be impossible!

He laughed again. "You want to know how I got into AMSA?" he said. _How does he keep doing that?_ "It was simple really. Let's just say that I'm very... persuasive." He chuckled again. "But enough about me. Tonight is about you."

"Me?"

"Yes, yes. I have been watching you for many years, Barron, and I think you have great potential. Potential that you are wasting living such a life of servitude and humility towards those you are clearly above. You control the _fire_, John," he said, fervor rising in his voice, "the primordial substance that brought life to the world when time was young and has the power to take it away just as quickly. I have watched you for many years, John, as you lived out your life serving others, others who can do nothing more than dream and yammer. You have the power of action John! You should be in control!"

I couldn't help but agree with him. My power _did_ elevate me above everyone else, certainly above those civilians I saved on a regular basis, but even above other heroes. I had so much more power than any of them could ever have.

"Why waste your power, your potential on such weaklings?"

No one had ever thanked me for a rescue or saving the city. And what was I getting out of all this heroism? Less time with my wife and a chance to see an early grave? I could be doing so much more, couldn't I?

"I can help you realize your potential, John. I can help you come to your full power. All you need do is come with me and stop being a hero. Simple, really."

He was right, I agreed. It was simple. And there was so much I felt I could learn if I wasn't tied down into being a hero. So much more power I felt, hidden beneath another layer in myself. And I just had to stop being a hero.

But stop being a hero? That wasn't right. I couldn't do that.

"No... I can't do that..." I said, hesitatingly.

"John, don't be absurd!" the old man said. "You have to think of yourself for once!"

Think of myself? "Our powers make us special," my father had said, "and we have to use our gifts to help other people." I'd believed that all my life. Putting myself before the people, working to my gain at their expense would be just... selfish.

"No, I have to think of the others," I said, struggling to make myself believe that that was the right path. I began to get up.

"Sit down, John," the old man said. "You're throwing away a great opportunity here!"

I felt compelled to sit, as if there was some inexorable force tugging at my mind, convincing me to sit and stay.

"I'm sorry, your offer is great and all," I said, "but I just can't abandon everyone. Who'll keep them safe?"

"But John," he said, leaning forward, "you _must_." And for the first time, I noticed that his eyes began to glow a brilliant crimson red just as I felt in my mind a little voice begin tugging and pulling me, pushing me to agree with the old man. So he was a telepath. That's how he'd known so much about what I was thinking. All of what he'd said was probably just a ploy to get me off track of his operation. I couldn't just let him manipulate me.

I pushed the little voice into a corner and out of my mind and quickly got out of my chair. "You can't convince me to do anything, especially not with any mind tricks like yours!"

The old man closed his eyes, the red glow fading from them, and uttered a deep sigh. "You are very perceptive, John," he said, "to have noticed my powers. But now that I see I cannot sway you the easy way," he motioned to one of the guards standing off to the side of the room who stepped off and returned with a television set and rolled it up so we could watch it, "I suppose that I will have to use the hard way." He took the remote and switched the set on.

"I am an enormous proponent of the concept of leverage. And in a moment," he said, pointing to the screen as the tubes warmed up and a foggy amalgam of colors appeared, "you will see just what that concept means to you."

An image of the Earth, blue-green and white appeared on the screen against the dark of space. "There are over six billion people living on the Earth," the old man continued, "and from what I read in your emotions, you care for, at some level, each and every one of them. Now, I'm not the type that would pressure you into acquiescing to my offer with some overblown plan to destroy the world," he said, apparently sensing my rising worry as I watched the globe revolve. "After all, I live here too, so what good would destroying the Earth do me? I do sense however, that, among those six billion, there is one for whom you care the most," he drawled, turning to look me in the face. "Am I right?"

I watched the screen closely as the image zoomed down to the surface and began sweeping over the country, slowly zooming in further until it resolved over a skyline that I knew very well: Maxville's. He couldn't be thinking of...

"Oh, but I am. Of all the emotions, Mr. Peace, love is the easiest to read. No one hides love, caches it away in a corner of their mind that not even they themselves are aware of. Everyone always wears their love openly; and the object of that love is very easily read from the emotion." The image continued to zoom in and refocus. I gasped silently as our street, Paula's and mine, materialized on the screen. The image continued to refine until it had centered perfectly on Paula, out in the garden with a pair of jeans on, tending to her patch of tulips and daisies.

A crisp smile played across the old man's lips. "So you see my point then?" he said finally. My head fell heavily to my chest. I fought back my urge to cry. "She is such a beautiful woman. It would be most unfortunate if something were to happen to her."

"I'll do anything you ask."


End file.
